Mainly because so many people are giving advice. If they have very little experience, then their advice counts less than that of more experienced people. (sorry, but experience counts)
Personally, I got my engineering degree more than 20 years. On the one hand, that might give me a broader perspective. On the other hand, I don’t know what it is like to be a new graduate in this sluggish economy.
Don’t drop out because for some organizations you need to have a degree. You might want to work indirectly for the government that also help military, instead of joining the military. You have gone this far, do not quit.
On the subject of asking for GPA, as a person that near retirement, is working almost 35 years. There were 2 times in my career I was asked about my GPA. Often the interview was on the fence about hiring me and needed some assurance. I ended up not getting hired anyway. But I got hired at lots of companies and during 2 recessions without the GPA questions. I have a very good GPA.
“STEM” includes the biological sciences, which produce as many graduates as all of engineering put together. The biological science job market is quite weak relative to the number of graduates, so using “STEM” including biological science as a proxy for any of its non-biological-science subgroups may not give a very accurate assessment.
Of course, petroleum engineering specifically has a job market that tends to fluctuate with oil prices.
30 years in aerospace/mechanical - which is currently in the doldrums …
I personally do work that requires good academic background, high math skills, research, development, but most people do not.
During classes at JHU for my masters, I met a lot of people who were doing NO technical work and were having a bit of a tough time in their classes at JHU .
Have been very impressed by folks that can work with hardware, also by folks who can design hardware and/or systems rather than just analyze something and say it works or it doesn’t work (with no clue how to make it work).
I do see some news articles that petroleum engineering is slowing down, consider chemical engineering if you have taken tons of chemistry classes or mechanical (good hands-on practical degree, many programs have a lot of electives) …
Final point on this thread - Engineering in 4 years is very difficult and requires good preparation out of high school, preferably several years of chem, physics, math, then a lot of work, and a lot of figuring out how to get that grade. GPAs can get quite low … not a sign of being a poor student, it’s just a really hard set of majors.
Agreed. I noticed that flaw a bit too late in the writing of it. Admittedly, better numbers are harder to find, but the trend seems to follow the article I linked well enough.
http://www.asee.org/papers-and-publications/publications/college-profiles/2011-profile-engineering-statistics.pdf
Well it would help to notice that the OP is at the beginning of his/her career, so that advice would be a bit more timely. In addition to that:
Computer Science is a bit of a curious case, in that programmers are much higher in demand and much less expensive to train than the traditional engineers. Job prospects there are quite good, for both strong and weak students (the weaker students are very capable of doing the less technically difficult tasks of CS work), and I even know quite a few engineers who received more lucrative programming jobs than engineering jobs. I personally consider the two fields separately, at least in terms of job prospects, because CS differs significantly from everything else that can be called engineering.
What specifically does this link say about the trend you write about?
However, those weaker at CS may not have long careers purely in software, as the typical expectation (in general, not specific to any particular type of job) of rising pay with experience eventually prices them out of the market, although knowledge of CS can be useful in other jobs at employers selling computing devices, software, or services (e.g. jobs in support, field support, product management, marketing, etc.).
Also, job prospects in CS are subject to economic and industry cycles, just like jobs in many other areas. Of course, the industry cycles for CS, civil engineering, and petroleum engineering are different.
Growth rate of the degree-holding population, mostly, which is faster than the rate that you could reasonably expect jobs to be added. But I think this one is a lot better than anything else I found: http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf13311/
1.55M engineers to 2.25M natural-born degree holders in engineering. Even ignoring foreign workers, 1 job: 1.5 graduates seems to be a reasonable estimate. Also, computer work is 1:1 and biology is 1:3.5 in the same set of data. That sounds more or less like what could be expected of the field.
Career changes over the course of a lifetime are not uncommon, to say the least. I wouldn’t say that it’s something that a recent graduate should really worry too much about when they look for initial employment.
@Justabe1020 I agree with @xraymancs. Your GPA is not flunking, you are surviving your program. If you finish your degree, the military is still an option and you could end up with a pretty amazing job with the military with an engineering degree.
The only time anyone cared about my GPA (I have a bachelors and two graduate degrees-though not in engineering) was when I was trying to get into the next level of education. No employer has ever asked for my GPA.
It is expected that there will be some excess of degree holders over those working obviously associated jobs. Some degree holders are retired, while others have moved on to related but different jobs like management. Some may have changed careers (though whether they voluntarily left or were forced out due to being unable find employment is a distinction that can matter). Some may have gone into something else to begin with (e.g. patent law or finance).
Of course, what the ratio is expected to be in good, average, or poor job markets is not necessarily obvious.
Thank you everyone for answering. I’m reading all of your responses and your little arguments being thrown back and forth between some users. It’s good though. I need all angles towards this problem. I got a 3.0 this semester rather than a 2.75, meaning that my cumulative is now gonna be a 2.62 which is huge for me. I think I’m going to go back to school and continue with petroleum engineering. I’m like 70% sure.
I think that’s a great idea if you can sustain it. Don’t backslide. Companies tend to be more forgiving of a low GPA the farther back it is!
Finish your engineering degree…GPA isn’t important once you get your first job.
I speak from experience: I got a ChemEng degree and didn’t have a 3.0 cum GPA. Had a job less than 3 months later. Never thought I’d go to school after undergrad…found a job at a chemical company and went to night school to get an MBA. Having that combo has served me well…and I’ve never worked as an engineer…lots of different roles: sales, product management, channel management. Interfacing with engineers often…even got a patent working with one of them.
FINISH your engineering degree… not many can accomplish that…you will get a job…
That’s good news! As @cosmicfish says, continuing to improve your GPA will make a difference.
Do your best. Since you don’t have an internship this summer, I recommend you find a research project to work on (whether or not you do other work over the summer, such as classes). The experience is as good as you could expect from an actual internship, but with the slight downside of having to convince your future employer that you want to work in industry and not academia.
@NeoDymium thank you for your input. It will be of great use.
@xraymancs thanks
@LCalum Wow. thats incredible. thanks for your info. Makes me feel like there is hope still!